The sex industry in the colony

An enormous sex industry covered the sexual needs of the soldiers posted in Gibraltar and the fleets that berthed there. It was mainly Spanish women, and also targeted tourism and the middle and upper classes of nearby provinces. Vicenta López, who worked as a servant in Gibraltar, says:

«When a fleet docked in Gibraltar we servants had to leave work early so that the soldiers didn’t catch us in the street. They thought that women were all the same thing.»

On Gibraltar soil, the sex industry was limited by the military encampment and the objectives of the colonial project. In 1922 the military governor of Gibraltar closed down around 15 registered brothels or whorehouses, most of them in Serruya’s Lane. Some of the affected sex workers moved to La Línea, but other clubs and cabarets in Gibraltar stayed open for decades.

Those interviewed also confirm the impact of the sex industry on society in La Línea. «In 1930s Gibraltar Street in La Línea had around five or seven cabarets, and there were more in San José Street and other streets. There was high and low-class prostitution, twenty-something nightclubs and the same number of brothels», Vicente Ricardo recalls. The morality at that time insisted that the women of La Línea who were not part of the business did not meet or make eye contact with the sex workers and their clients.